


A Turning Point

by bloo_balloon



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: A bit cheesy but, Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Psychological Drama, Triggers, Young adult!Louis, couldn't help it, teen!harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 17:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6916873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloo_balloon/pseuds/bloo_balloon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis felt like drowning, alone for eternity in the sea of darkness and despair.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Until he met an odd boy with stormy eyes and a dimpled smile who taught him how to breathe again.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>(AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Turning Point

**Author's Note:**

> Hola! First story on this site so be gentle :D  
> Feedback makes me happy!

_February 15 th 2012_

 

 

“Whatever you are thinking about doing… please don’t.”

The quivering voice startles him, the sound crisp and clear even over the loud waves crashing into the cliff below. It’s soothing, almost sounds worried, caring. It makes him feel angry and bitter.

He turns and to his surprise a boy, quite a few years younger than him he reckons, is standing a few feet away. He looks troubled and sad and his cheeks are rosy from the cold harsh wind in comparison to his pale complexion. His eyes are dull, as if a storm is brewing inside them and his arms are hugging his body tight as if trying to keep himself warm, only the flimsy sweater he wears doesn’t help all that much.

His blood is boiling, the sudden rush makes him drunk on rage. “Why the fuck would you care, huh?!” he snarls, his voice raspy and cracked, _broken_.

The stranger jumps, shivers even worse than before that it almost makes him feel a little bad for yelling. Almost.

“The waves look pretty and inviting”, the stranger says shyly, taking a tentative step forward, “But there are some things you should learn to admire from afar.”

Louis lifts his eyes, fixes the odd boy with a cold stare then within the next few seconds bursts into a fit of maniacal laughter. Who the heck was this guy and why did he not see he was not wanted there? All Louis has ever wanted since he woke up that wretched morning was to be alone. “Cut the poetic bullshit and mind your own goddamn business, mate. Go home; spare yourself from getting a nasty cold.”

The man makes no indication that he’s about to leave anytime soon and to Louis’ annoyance he only moves closer and takes a seat next to him on the ground, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and looking back worriedly at the shadow of the single tree behind them. After a while he speaks again.

“The name’s Harry-“

“You could be the fucking Queen for all I care.” he bites back. “You think just because you found me here and stopped me from doing something stupid means you know me? Stop acting like you wanna be my friend! You all think you can help! You all think that something’s wrong with me when clearly you don’t know a single thing about me! There, now’s the time when you say that I’m wrong. It all comes down to this.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.” The boy named Harry shrugs, a small, reassuring smile tugging at his lips. A gust of wind ruffles his brown curls but he doesn’t seem to mind it. Of course Louis notices how he’s trying to stop his teeth from chattering. What the hell was this lunatic doing out and about without a coat and scarf in that blasted weather? “I think you’re just lonely, sad, desperate… I was like that too, you know?”

And no, Louis doesn’t know and he also doesn’t want to admit that Harry was right on the money. “What do you know about it? You don’t look older than 16, kid. You shouldn’t say those things as if you’ve experienced them.” _Someone as young as you should enjoy life to the fullest_ , he silently adds.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Harry starts amiably, ignoring Louis’ question altogether, “I’m not saying I know you or anything, it’s just that I had this feeling when I saw you hovering over the edge. I kinda knew I had to come over and talk to you.”

Louis lets out a bark of laughter. “Well aren’t I nice company?” He expects the boy to shrug or say some cryptic nonsense, but instead he is met with silence and the sadness he sees in the boy’s eyes makes Louis wonder if he said something to offend him. “Sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“No, no. I was just… reminiscing.” He pauses, looks up to the sky and smiles. ”Besides, anyone’s a better companion than loneliness, am I right?”

Louis can’t help but nod, feeling more at peace with himself than he’s ever felt in ages. For what feels like an eternity there is a comfortable silence engulfing them like a blanket, the cold forgotten, the sound of the waves a distant memory.

 “You’re not going to ask why I wanted to dive headfirst into the ocean?” he asks after a while.

They boy ponders over the question a bit then shakes his head slowly. “I never meant to ask about your troubles, if I’m honest. I learned to respect your privacy. Feels like I’m stealing away something precious to you if I inquire. Instead I just talk. Maybe my trembling voice and awkward demeanor makes you lot crack up at least.”

“What do you mean ‘you lot’? I don’t follow.”

“I’m talking about people like you. People who come here to watch the waves crash into the rocks.” Harry explains, eyes distant and gloomy, skin as white as porcelain. He just now realizes how pale and frail Harry actually is. He’s been too focused on his soothing voice to notice.

“So you visit this part of town regularly? What in hell’s name made you go out without a coat? Here…” Louis shrugs off his thick jacket and drapes it over the boy’s shoulders without a thought.

Despite Harry’s shocked expression and his pleas to take the jacket back, Louis doesn’t budge. “My mum always said to pay back kindness with kindness. She also said to be kind even to those who did you wrong but I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.”

It comes out without warning, like lighting following the clap of thunder that precedes a storm. Memories he tried so hard to forget come rushing back and it suddenly feels harder to breathe. Louis had no intention of bringing up his mother to a complete stranger and quite a bizarre one at that, let alone give life lessons when he is the one whose life is crumbling apart. Talk about hypocrisy…

“She must know something if she gives advice this sound. You’ll get what she is trying to say someday. Must’ve realized you’d catch on sooner or later.” Harry mutters.

“Gave.”

“Pardon?”

“ _Gave_ advice this sound. She passed away two months ago,” Louis says darkly. Harry looks guilty about bringing it up and apologizes for being nosy. “Don’t worry. I’m still working on coming to terms with it. Might as well talk about it.”

“You really don’t have to force yourself,” Harry says, placing a shaky hand on Louis’ shoulder.

This boy is an enigma to Louis. His head is swarming with a million questions he wants to ask Harry, but at the same time just hearing him speak makes him calm, carefree, weightless, no matter what he’s speaking about. Almost like his mother made him feel and just like his late mother, Harry seems to have a sort of way of speaking, a sort of melancholy in his tone that makes him wonder what this boy has been through. “It’s nothing spectacular, honestly. Long story short, she abandoned me when I needed her the most. She was my lifeline and when she was no more that lifeline was severed. She chose the easy way out and left me here to fix myself when it’s clear that I’m beyond repair.”

“And what did you think, huh?!” Harry snaps, voice like vitriol. It scares Louis to see him like this. “That you’re better off following her in death? That you are worthless? Is that what you thought?!” he pauses to catch his breath. “I didn’t think you’d need a stranger to say that your _life_ has meaning, alright? It’s nothing you can toss away like a torn paper bag. Paper bags can be recycled, but you won’t get a second chance at life! Treasure it! Treasure it like I never knew how!”

It takes him a moment to realize the boy started sobbing and when he looks at Harry he can clearly see the tears tumbling down his cheeks in rivulets. Harry moves to wipe at his eyes furiously and Louis just doesn’t know what to make of the whole ordeal so the only logical thing for him to do is comfort him. Or at least _try_ to comfort him.

“Harry, please calm down. It’s… I-I promise I’ll try to have a better outlook on life!” he blurts out without thinking. This confession seems to make Harry settle down a bit, his breathing no longer coming in short puffs and his broad shoulders no longer shaking as hard. He goes on. “It’s a very stupid thing to say considering that I barely know anything about you and you’re weird as hell and you seem to know a lot more than your average high school boy, but you know what? I believe you really struck a chord, somehow. You don’t have someone telling you to treasure your life every day… Not when you’re in my shoes. Also, you were right.”

“R-right?”

And Louis allows a rare smile to grace his lips. “The waves look prettier if you watch them from afar so will you come watch them with me again?”

Harry turns from being sad to shocked in a millisecond, regarding Louis as if weighing the truthfulness of his words. “Do you mean all of that?”

Louis nods. “It’s gonna be tough but what you said really made me reconsider my options. I can’t live in the shadow of a memory forever.”

“Yes.”

“Huh?”

“Yes,” Harry says once more with a small grin. “I promise I’ll come watch the waves with you again.”  

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

_February 15 th 2016_

Four years.

Looking back, he is still shocked by the change, by the sudden decision to turn his life around and start anew. It’s a bit funny now that he thinks about it because no one in a million years would assume that Louis Tomlinson was a nihilistic, suicidal and broken man four years ago.

Of course, it still hurts when he has the vivid dreams of his mother hanging from the apple tree in their backyard. Of course he still has those nights when he keeps his eyes glued to the ceiling with fear of closing them and reliving that moment. Some things just cannot be entirely fixed.

However he was better. Much, much better and it showed.

Four years ago, after a few months of planning he decided to make a change of scenery and headed east to London. It turned out to be one of his best decisions ever and he never regretted doing it.

Rough times followed, with juggling shitty part time jobs, college - for which he used his hard earned savings - and his growing passion for music. In the end it all came down to one singing contest he’s dreamed of competing in for ages. Obviously, he ended up meeting some crazy talented, amazing people. Three of which he formed a band with.

They went huge after getting third place in the competition, every news site talked about _that new band_ and the potential they had to be the next big thing in showbiz. And exactly that they did. It almost made Louis forget his previous life. When he got to do what he’d secretly enjoyed to do the most alongside the three best friends he’d never had back at home, what more could he really want?

Still there was something he’d never forget, not even if he ever wanted to; a person so deeply ingrained in Louis’ memories, so important to him that just by thinking about him made Louis smile. _The person at the turning point._

For the last four years he has always made sure to stop by in his hometown as often as he could if only to even get a glimpse of _him_ on the edge of the cliff, staring down at the grey sea, waiting, shivering in the cold air with a longing in his eyes and a gentle smile on his face.

And Louis waited and waited and waited but _he_ never came to the cliff. _He_ never came back again. If only Louis realized sooner _why_ he never came back…

He finds himself in the same place yet again, his feet carrying him along the narrow footpath to the lonesome tree atop the cliff, a bouquet of white lilies in hand and a spring in his step. He pauses just underneath the branches which have yet to recover their leaves come springtime and he settles down the bouquet next to the trunk.

“Hello, kid. It’s me again, for maybe the hundredth time this year,” Louis begins, uncertain. “You must be fed up already, like ‘Oh, why does this obnoxious guy keep coming back here? Can’t he see how weird he is talking to a goddamn tree?’” He adjusts his scarf around his neck then plops down with a ‘thump’. “I’m not sure you’d actually say that, to be honest… Never really got the chance to know you all that well.” Louis pauses, swallows the lump threatening to form in his throat. “The thing is, kid, you still need to come watch the waves with me one last time. Remember your promise four years ago? My God, if I think of it now, it has been exactly four years since that dreary day. The weather was no different than it is right now, I can assure you of that. It’s fucking freezing!” he laughs. “But I’m not here to talk about the weather. I’m here to ask how have you been, how’s the town been while I was away? Did anything whacky happen? Did anyone come to talk to you up here? I’m guessing that… you made sure to have someone around, remember how you said that having anyone’s better than being lonely? I think I finally understand what you mean and even now I feel like… like you’re _here_ with me despite my not being able to see you.”

He tries to gather his bearings, to keep his voice steady but the next thing he says comes out choked up, cracked even. ”As corny as this may sound, I wish you were here right now, if only for a short while. If only to hear me scream at the top of my lungs how grateful I am to you, how you made me change my life, how you _saved me._ Me, the guy who didn’t even bother to tell you his name. That’s right. If it weren’t for you, I’d be resting on the seabed right now.”

He hasn’t wept in quite some time but just this once he allowed the tears free flow. ”I must look really pathetic to you right now and the way I desperately cling to a memory must be laughable. It was _I_ who said you can’t live behind a memory for eternity after all. But I just can’t let go of it. I’m stuck with you and it’s your damn fault for making such an impact,” he smiles through his tears.

“Just come back sometime, you hear me?” he adds with a serious tone. “I’ll be waiting.”

His hand comes to rest on the gray stone and through teary eyes he regards the epitaph again.

_In loving memory of Harry Edward Styles_

_Son, brother, friend_

_1994-2010_

“Thank you… _Harry_.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for sticking around till the end. If you liked this work feel free to comment/bookmark/leave kudos!


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